Jessica leaned away from the table and wrinkled her nose. “Seriously, Leandras. What’s his deal?”
“You.” The fae man looked her up and down and slowly licked his lips. “And I honestly can’t blame him.”
No. Now was definitely the wrong time to just whip out a come-on like that.
She glared at him and spread her arms. “What is this? You guys are really—”
From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of flickering darkness at the end of her outstretched hand. That alone was enough to make her pause. But when she forced herself to actually look at that arm and her suddenly numb fingertips, all coherent thought packed its bags, grabbed Jessica’s remaining sanity by the hand, and fled to go play Break All the Rules of Magic somewhere else.
Jessica was glowing.
It wasn’t the kind that usually elicited awe in complete magical strangers and what had looked a hell of a lot like unbridled lust in the fae sitting across from her. If she’d been the kind of witch who saw auras in the first place, she would have run way from anyone who had this blatantly dark power pulsing around them like it pulsed around her now.
Her light was black, maybe even the complete absence of light, and it instantly reminded her of the same dark energy that had wavered off Ati’ol of the Naruli as it sucked all the brilliant, sacred glow of the cavern housing that crystalline tree.
Except Jessica’s darkness—now illuminated so clearly by Ahárra for all three of them to witness—didn’t create the kind of energetic black hole she’d been forced to accept her magic created.
Tongues of ghostly black flames flickered and pulsed along her arm as just another visual of what her vestrohím power was capable of, yes. That was nothing new. But lining every inch of the energy Ahárra apparently wanted these three conspirators to see was an even brighter force of pure white, starkly contrasted against everything Jessica knew of her magic.
Against everything she knew of herself.
The brilliant light around her only grew stronger as she experimentally turned her hand over, looked down at her torso, studied her crossed legs beneath her on the cushion.
It was just another hallucination. It had to be. Just like Leandras’ monstrous voice after their first mind-altering round of the tonic and the threat she’d only thought she’d heard. But no matter how hard she tried to reason away what she now saw, there was no denying this proof was just as real and viable as the remnants of the healed wound on Leandras’ cheek.
“I...” A long, shuddering sigh escaped her. “I have no idea what this means.”
“It means something new has been unleashed,” Leandras muttered. “Within you.”
“She’s not the only one.” Railen seemed to struggle with pulling his gaze away from the glowing Guardian to address the fae. “Is she?”
Leandras bit down on his bottom lip—it was impossible for Jessica to look away from the obvious desire directed at her now when he made that face—and slowly shook his head. “No. As I’ve said, this changes—”
“Everything. Yes.” The mage closed his eyes and let out a sharp, surprised-sounding laugh. “More options now indeed. The truth shows itself in Ahárra. And now we have the perfect advantage.”
“A Guardian who can make a stand,” the Laen’aroth agreed. “A new edge.”
“Fighting fire with fire...” Railen grinned. “By the Weaver’s breath, they’ll never see it coming.”
Jessica had to try several times to focus on the other magicals’ faces without being distracted by her own glowing, flickering, pulsing skin. “I mean, I can do fire. But it’s not exactly my main thing...”
“On the contrary.” Leandras cocked his head, his gaze still roaming all over her and making her feel like a piece of raw meat skewered and staked to the ground in a lion’s den. “This is merely fire of a different kind. The flame we never expected to need.”
“I’m not—”
“Jessica.” Railen gripped the edge of the table in his obvious excitement. “However you came to possess or unlock this new facet of your power does not matter. The Dalu’Rázj would never expect the Guardian’s rise on the front line, let alone a vestrohím’s. And by the time he realizes he has no countering force, it will already be done.”
“Great. Well at least you both sound a lot more confident about this whole ‘bring down the dark warlord’ thing, so we’ll—Wait.” She blinked furiously and widened her eyes. “What do you mean ‘on the front line’? What front line?”
Leandras took a deep breath and finally quit devouring her with his gaze so he could settle it on her face again instead. “Your purpose has just expanded.”
“What, you mean I have to do even more than you’ve already told me I had to? Than I’ve already done?”
“The original plan was to deliver the Laenmúr from their imprisonment here and return to Earth with the artifacts and their allegiance.”
“After which you would naturally have remained beside the Gateway to circumvent any divergent Hakali loyalists from passing through to stop us,” Railen added. “Where possible, of course. But now... Now, none of that matters. You can stand with us when we meet the Dalu’Rázj one final time.”
“Yeah...” Jessica grimaced and shook her head. “I’m a fan of the original plan.”
“Forgive me, I misspoke.” With another elated burst of laughter, the mage clapped a hand to his head and grinned. “You must stand with us at the end. It’s the last thing he’ll expect. The last thing any of us could have foreseen.”
“Because I can destroy and heal now?” She scoffed. “I mean, I get the whole ‘kill ’em with kindness’ thing, but I’m pretty sure healing the bastard who trapped you here and made some seriously shitty renovations on your entire world won’t actually, you know, save anyone.”
“But with you standing against him as a vestrohím, he has no defense. Of course, pitting chaos against chaos would otherwise consume you. He’ll know this.”
“Great. So you wanna stick me in a fighting pit with this guy and watch my magic tear me apart from the inside out. No thanks.”
“But you can do what no other vestrohím ever has. That light, Jessica. Your light. It’s the one defensive advantage we have. And I believe it’s enough.”
The tingling flare of her magic—and probably an unhealthy dose of anger now mixed with the shock of fear she’d never admit to—skittered down her arms, making the flare of black aura lined in brilliant white burst in pulsing flares around her. She wanted it to stop.
All the talking and postulating. All the hope reflected in Leandras and Railen’s eyes and directed at her. They were only guessing. They didn’t know for sure. And after all the close calls she and the fae had had in the last few months because they hadn’t known anything else for sure, putting all their faith in her now was the dumbest thing they could possibly do.
“I can’t—” It came out as a dry croak, and she cleared her throat. “I can’t do that.”
“Your capabilities are clearly no longer in question,” Leandras replied.
“Great. But I can’t do what you want me to do.”
Railen smoothed his hands across the surface of the table. “Jessica, now that we know what you can do, he can’t defeat you. You’ll be—”
“You don’t fucking get it!” She slammed a fist down on the table, and the energy around her flared to twice its size. “I wasn’t trying to bring Leandras back from the dead. It just happened. I don’t know how!”
A brilliant burst of black light lined in white erupted from her fist and rose in a flickering orb to float above the center of the table. No one said a word.
The orb pulsed once, then filtered into a thin stream of energy snaking through the air toward Leandras Vilafor. He stared at it, frozen in wary curiosity, until the tendril curled toward his face and caressed his cheek.
His eyelids fluttered closed, and he sucked in a breath through his teeth.
Jesus, why was it always the creepy shit that f
loated this guy’s boat?
Just when Jessica thought she’d completely misjudged the fae and whatever kind of future intimacy with him she’d briefly let herself entertain, the remnant of her magic’s wound on his cheek disappeared. A bead of light formed in the corner of Leandras’ closed eye, hung there for a moment as it swelled, then spilled over and trickled down his cheek.
Not light. It was a tear.
She’d never seen a fae cry; until now, she’d just assumed it wasn’t in their already stunted range of emotional capacity.
But that was what this was. A fae tear. On Leandras’ cheek.
Shit. Jessica Northwood had just broken the Laen’aroth.
“I don’t believe that’s true,” Railen said gently as the light faded from Leandras’ face and Jessica’s body. “The two of you have much more yet to accomplish together. We all know this.”
The fae slowly wiped the silver tear from his cheek, and when he opened his eyes, he looked fully composed again.
“But clearly, there’s more to it,” the mage continued. “Whether you believe you know how doesn’t matter, Jessica. You are the Guardian. Whatever piece of fate has chosen you to perform this task, it hasn’t chosen lightly. Now, I think, we have everything we need.”
“Not quite.” Leandras glanced at his cordial glass and pursed his lips. “Apparently, there’s more.”
“Wow.” Jessica grabbed her own glass and couldn’t fathom downing another shot of potion. But the amber liquid shimmered in front of her, and there was no choice but to continue. “What the hell else is there to say?”
“Only one way to find out.” Railen lifted his glass one more time with them, and they drank again.
The next round tasted like honey and earth and something darker she couldn’t place; the first thought running through Jessica’s mind was that this was how the night sky tasted.
Licking her lips, she realized how ridiculous that comparison was again and rolled her eyes. “I swear, if we’re going back to the beginning with this crap...”
She swayed on her cushion as the insanely powerful buzz of what felt like four shots of whiskey hit her all at once. The strength of it immediately faded, though now she really wondered exactly what the hell this elixir was made of.
Leandras hummed in enjoyment and pursed his lips. “Darkwine.”
“That is surprising.” With a chuckle, Railen swirled his cordial glass as he stared into it and paused. “Well. I haven’t seen this in Ahárra.”
“Please tell me it’s empty.” Jessica stared at him, not daring to look into her own glass. But judging by the mage’s crooked smile, that didn’t look very likely.
“It would seem we’re being directed to continue,” Leandras added. “I have no issue with it. Jessica?”
She finally looked at her glass and found an almost black substance filling the delicate frosted glass, which left a thin sheen of shimmering green liquid behind along the edge when she gently tilted it. “This is darkwine?”
“Indeed. The same palliative heavily enjoyed beyond this tent by the remainder of our hosts.” Leandras smirked. “An interesting final round to our exchange inside this tent, I must say.”
“No.” She shook her head and set down her glass. “I told you I don’t drink.”
“You do now,” Railen added, his smile growing. “I have to admit I’m quite curious about why this is our next point of revelation.”
Jessica snorted.
Great. They’d all spilled their guts around this table for a trippy Xaharí history lesson. Not to mention all the fun secrets that came with Jessica being the Guardian and having Leandras the Laen’aroth at her side until they finished what he started with that goddamn coin in her bank. And now Ahárra wanted to turn her into a drunk.
“Bad things happen when I drink,” she said flatly. “None of us want that.”
“This isn’t about what any of us think we want.” Railen sniffed delicately at the darkwine and shrugged. “I see no other way out of this.”
“Or maybe it’s a test.” Jessica looked back and forth between the men sitting across from her, both of whom looked amused and still entirely unconvinced by the statement. “For me.”
“Has this been an issue for you before?” the mage asked. “Bad things happening when you partake of darkwine?”
“Well seeing as I’ve never had it before, I can’t actually answer that. Everything else, though...”
Jessica glanced at her cordial glass filled with dark-green, shimmering liquid. Yeah, the stuff was definitely taunting her. But now that she’d said it out loud, a sudden clarity of what she’d always assumed since Mickey Hargraves had thrown her under the criminal-arrest bus hit her now almost as hard.
She’d stopped drinking altogether—minus her one seriously stupid bender after Mel’s art exhibit at the gallery in Denver—after she’d been arrested for murder and grand larceny. Grand. That was a joke in an of itself, but there wasn’t exactly a legal term to describe “single-handedly robbing an entire wealth of priceless historical artifacts that would have taken an entire team to successfully pull off.” Because it had taken the entire team. Every single member of Corpus.
Her friends. Her family for five years. The only magicals in the world she’d grown to care about after losing the two who’d brought her into this world and had thrown themselves at the fucking Brúkii’s feet. That was so long ago—ten years—and Jessica still carried the sacrifice they’d made to give their daughter one more fighting chance at life.
“No.” She reached for the glass and paused, all the images she’d tried to bury away coming fully back to her mind now.
“No?” Railen tilted his head.
Jessica hardly heard him. Her mind swam now with image after flashing image of what her life had been before Winthrop & Dirledge had ever been a part of it. Before her arrest. Before Rufus.
Despite how little she’d spoken about it to anyone—hell, she hadn’t said a single word and had never wanted to—the words bubbled up within her, fighting to be set free. Ahárra or no, this was something Jessica hadn’t needed to resolve for a very long time.
“We thought he’d gotten over it,” she whispered.
Even as she stared at the table and the full cordial glass of darkwine, she could feel Leandras and Railen exchanging a curious glance. Fortunately, neither of them said a thing. Maybe they knew there was more coming. Maybe they were too confused to find any words that didn’t sound completely ridiculous. It didn’t matter.
Oddly enough, the words were suddenly at the tip of tongue—either fueled by this other-dimension space around them now or Jessica’s own demons. Not the ones chasing her across two worlds but the ones inside.
And Jessica was about to let them all come crawling out from their dank, lightless holes to claw their way across the table, right here for a fae man and a Xaharí mage to see.
Not a pretty picture. Still, if they were ever going to leave this un-ending chat and get the hell on with the impossible job still ahead of them, Jessica really was going to have to spill the other secrets she’d been burying over and over again, wasn’t she?
She was about to bare her soul, because clearly, that was the only way out.
Chapter 7
“Rufus.” Just whispering his name in this place made Jessica’s heart break all over again. “He was... I mean, they call it an illness, right? Addiction? And he’d been fighting it for so long before we finally figured out what was going on. Mel and I tried to help him. We did everything we could think of, and then we thought he’d dropped the stuff for good.”
Tears stung her eyes at the memory of so many nights between Corpus jobs spent with Mel and Rufus in their shared apartment. Her brilliant smile that made her eyes light up like stars. His easygoing laugh, the way he’d sling one arm over the back of the couch and watch them dancing in the living room. How they’d all loved each other in a way Jessica had never thought possible until she’d found them.
“He beg
ged us to keep it a secret from everyone else, so we did. I mean, what other choice did we have? The last thing we wanted was to—” A lump formed in her throat, and she squeezed it painfully back down as her welling tears blurred the outline of the cordial glass. “We didn’t want to...”
The seconds of silence stretched by, and she still couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud.
“Shit.” Jessica snatched up the cordial glass and gruffly lifted it toward the center of the table. “I can’t do this.”
“Darkwine is an excellent tonic for a thick tongue,” Railen said as he raised his glass toward her as well.
Leandras did the same. “I’ll drink to that.”
“This is insane.”
They knocked back their glasses, and the honeyed sweetness of the drink warmed her from head to toe before she’d even set the glass back down on the table. It wasn’t an overwhelming peace, but it helped.
Christ, did she really think the booze would help? Not to mention sitting here walking down a charred and desecrated memory lane with the two most absurd drinking buddies she could have possibly imagined.
“Feel free to take as long as you need.” Railen wiped a bit of dark-green liquid from the corner of his mouth and sucked it quickly off his finger. “We have nowhere else to be.”
“This is ridiculous.” Jessica shook her head. “I don’t even know why I’m talking about this.”
“Because it needs to be said.” The overwhelming gentleness in Leandras’ voice made the tears well up all over again, and she wanted to punch him.
Shit, what she really wanted was a hug, and that was the probably the last thing she’d get right now. Not like she’d ask for one, but none of them could leave their seats until they were through this. Until this place was satisfied enough to let them leave.
“Your friend,” Leandras added. “He was precious to you.”
“He was more than just a friend. Yeah.” Jessica puffed out a sigh and finally relented beneath the undeniable urge to get this over with. She had to suck it up and push through. “We were a lot of things to each other. The three of us. Everyone else in Corpus knew that much, at least.”
The Spellcast Gate (Accessory to Magic Book 5) Page 7